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The Replacement of the Knights of Labor by the International Longshoremen's Association in the Port of Boston

Authors

Francis McLaughlin

Abstract

Despite the common opinion that the Knights of Labor had virtually disappeared by the end of the 1890s, it remained as the dominant labor organization among railroad freight handlers and longshoremen in Boston until just prior to the outbreak of World War I. The seemingly solid position of the Knights in the Boston transportation industry crumbled almost overnight in 1912, when a strike by Boston longshoremen was defeated resoundingly. The longshoremenÃªs experience in this strike led them to abandon the Knights of Labor and move en masse to the International LongshoremenÃªs Association by the beginning of 1913.

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